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It ain’t no mystery
If it’s politics or history
The thing you gotta know is
Everything is showbiz

– – “Springtime for Hitler” from “The Producers” by Melvin Kaminsky

Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad has demanded that Israeli radio station Galgalatz stop playing the song Allein Allein (Alone, Alone) by German pop band Polarkreis 18 (Polar Circle 18), saying that the chorus is full of ‘shouting voices’ and that ‘as long as there are living Jews for whom shouting in German triggers a flashback to the time of the Holocaust in Europe, we cannot trample their feelings”.

Have a listen to find out what made the MK cringe (lyrics at the end of the post):
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SHwn6O25CY

As a third generation Holocaust survivor myself I am eager to have a serious discussion about the subject, but a pop song is not where we should start.
Let’s start with the audacity of Israelis expressing anti-German sentiments while driving German cars and buying furniture from a former Nazi supporter.
Let’s talk about how survivors were ignored by the newly formed State of Israel and by its citizens, and let’s discuss whether these things are perpetuated to this day.
Let’s talk about Israelis captioning the Fuehrer so to make him complain about parking spaces in Tel-Aviv, let’s discuss why the two Israelis who made this thought it might be a positive outlet for their feelings, and why 90,000 Israelis wanted to watch it. Let’s discuss why the deplorable act is not making such videos but finding the nearest Holocaust survivor and forcing him to watch it.
Let’s talk about the German language and the German heritage of many of us, let’s talk about Yiddish and how we are witnessing this beautiful language die without intervening, let’s discuss why hearing a gentile uttering ‘wir sind allein‘ in German may trigger flashbacks and why a Jew saying ‘mir zaynen allein‘ in Yiddish does not have the same effect.

By all means, let’s have a serious discussion. But please, save me the fake wars about German pop songs in English. While this is a sure way of getting your name in the papers, I believe it belittles this serious subject.